[matmann2001]

In my experience in a university ECE program, you'd start with understanding the high level properties of transistors, then combining transistors to make AND and OR gates, then XOR and other gates, then MUXes and half/full adders, then flip-flops and eventually into synchronous (clocked) logic.

The lab component of such coursework did start with TTL chips but the timing of the coursework was such that you'd have most of the asynchronous logic theory taught by the time the chips came out.

[mike50]

Was it an Electrical Engineering, Electronics Engineering or Electrical Engineering Technology Program? My digital course skipped over transistor level and spent that time on basic FPGA's instead.

[simonbarker87]

Not OP but I did Electrical and Electronic Engineering undergrad and we started with diodes at the materials level, then BJT and FET transistors, then logic gates, flip flops, timers, ALUs and eventually working up to build a Motorola 68K micro controller from mid level components. There was some VHDL and FPGA in the later stages as well from memory.